


Sometimes I think this is just not "it"

by sentimatra



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: ? - Freeform, F/F, Fluff, Girls Being Girls, Kinda, Laurel being an analytical dweeb, Michaela being hospitable and sweet, PTSD, cuddly, i won't tag this oliver/connor b/c it's like one sentence, lauraela, laurela, queer platonic, they watch inception so like small sucide tw cuz of Mal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-28
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-03 18:09:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5301566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sentimatra/pseuds/sentimatra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the one where the Keating Five have a study party that's more of a sleepover at Michaela's and Laurel is analytical.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes I think this is just not "it"

**Author's Note:**

> I was kinda sad at the lack of Michaela x Laurel fics on AO3 (i've read them all already) so I wrote one. Then I realized there's probably a lack of fic b/c they're hard to characterize. These characters have a lot of layers and we also still don't know a whole lot about their pasts. This happens maybe sometime after the S2 midseason finale. I know the gist of what happened because of clips on tumblr but I haven't fully watched the last couple of eps so please bear with my inaccuracies!

The only part about keeping the ring that was difficult was that Laurel didn't know how Michaela would react once she returned it. How mad would she be? How mad would she stay? And after returning it, did Michaela still harbor resentment now?

 

She could predict some of Michaela's reactions apparently in situations when their lives depended on it, but when it came to their "friendship", however budding, it was a bit difficult to see where she stood. Which is why she got a little tipsy that night at the party, to give herself the courage to wheedle some sort of forgiveness out of Michaela.

 

Was it that she wanted Michaela to trust her so that she was easier to move as a pawn? That's the answer she'd begrudgingly accept in her head. It sounded gross. But maybe because it was childish to her to admit she kind of liked being around Michaela? Well. Sometimes. Aside from Ms. Keating herself, Laurel and Michaela were the only women on the Keating Five. They had to stick together right? Maybe she couldn't mentally take Michaela being cold towards her for the rest of her time at Keating's law firm.

 

Michaela didn't really wear a total facade so far as her goals in life. Guys would call her bitchy for how focused she was. Cold, even. Laurel sees flickers of hot emotion though, of compassion or even regret with each changing case. Rising to Connor's bait but stepping in front of Annalise that night to save Connor from doing a terrible thing... showing she cared JUST that little bit about Asher, their local frat-boy by her hesitation on informing him that his father was a really shitty judge.

 

She may be aspiring to be Annalise but she couldn't exactly shut all of herself off at a whim. Perhaps it was better that way.

 

Michaela could play people on a different level than Laurel if not more a obvious one. It was clear that when she wanted something towards her own gain (those outlines for example) she would tilt her head and smile saccharinely, flashing her pearly whites. How she'd grinned at the police officer that was investigating Keating's house the night of Sam's murder and hastily came up with a cover he bought. Laurel didn't blame Michaela's nerves at that moment, they _did_ literally just commit murder.

 

The times Michaela's been nice to Laurel, after shoving Sam over that banister? It wasn't outrageously clear. The four of them that were at Keating's that night had a bond that really wouldn't be there at all if it weren't for the secrecy a murder necessitates. They needed to keep each other's stories straight so they clung together. Laurel doesn't read into the fact that they know each other's coffee order or usually sit next to each other in the courtroom because at the end of the day they don't really talk about anything but law. A forced relationship like theirs was only good for the fact that they mutually had each other's backs. Maybe she'd prod at Michaela a bit and let something slip about herself because it wasn't good for them to be serious all the time but never too much. It shouldn't be bugging her that what she knows about Michaela boils down to mostly her relationships and that she's never orgasmed...

Okay, well, she really didn't _need_ to know that last bit.

\--

 

There's a bet at Keating's office while they're sorting through files that if Connor digs up the next piece of info on their case, Michaela has to host their next (drunken) homework/study session.

 

"Why the hell would I host you guys? Ever???" she tosses down a folder and picks up another to rifle through, a familiar sneer already pulling at her lips.

 

"Because you haven't hosted us for anything thus far," Connor replies waving a piece of paper around. "Mostly I'm just curious to know if your apartment reflects your clean-freakishness."

 

There seems to be a sense of agreement, shrugging around the room. Laurel smiles into her hand but Michaela spots her and narrows her eyes.

 

"Not you too."

 

Laurel just shrugs and grins. "Being a clean-freak isn't a bad thing. But we're all curious."

 

"I am NOT hosting you guys."

 

"Look, I'll buy the booze and I promise to watch Asher," Wes says with his puppy-dog grin. Asher just looks like he's debating whether he should defend himself or not. Free booze was free booze.

 

Wes grins and Michaela sighs. "Fine. But I doubt Connor will--"

 

"I've had the correct file in my hand for like ten minutes now, " he cuts in, "I just wanted to see if you'd bite."

 

He ducks out of the room when Michaela lunges to strangle him with a harpy-like screech from her throat.

\---

 

Michaela answers the door to her apartment in sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt, hair pulled back into a messy bun, which is only fair since it's her apartment.

 

She says so with one eyebrow raised when Laurel's eyes linger a second too long on her sweatpants. It's foreign seeing Michaela look so....normal? Not dressed-to-impress like they all usually are. Laurel was actually staring at the high school name printed down the side of the sweats, a Southern army-general’s last name. Laurel shakes her head, filing this info away while holding out a carton of hard ciders.

"I'm not judging," she smiles. She chose to wear her warmest hoodie, the red plain one over her most comfy pair of jeans. She was planning on doing _some_ work so she'd rather be comfortable. Michaela purses her lips and takes the cider, turning and walking to what looks like the kitchen in her three room apartment (there are two doors on the wall to her right so one of them has to be a bathroom). Laurel stays in the living room and takes off her shoes. It's clean aside from the papers strewn across the wooden center table that's in front of the velvet white couch. There's no tv, just a rectangular nearly floor to ceiling window with mint green curtains drawn and what looks like one of those older cassette/cd-player radios to the side of it.

 

The walls are tan with some photos of what look like her adoptive parents and other people that may be extended family/cousins. Laurel wanders over to look at one. Both of Michaela's parents were black, the father with close cropped hair and the mother with short curls. Both of them looked genuinely kind and loving as they embraced each other, her father in a black suit and her mother in a dark blue dress, not totally dissimilar to Michaela's style so Laurel sees where the fashion sense comes from. She's half-surprised she doesn't see Michaela's prom pictures there or... any pictures of Michaela really. Maybe she keeps them in her room. Maybe she doesn't want Connor to comment on them.

 

Speaking of him he'd said he'd be kind of late, which figured. So unless Wes and Asher showed up before them (they also had a tendency to be late), it was just her and Michaela for a bit.

 

Michaela pulls her out of her thoughts with a heavy exasperated sigh. Laurel makes her way into the kitchen, small but also as clean as the rest of the apartment with white countertops. Michaela's standing by the sink with one bottle of hard cider on the counter in front of her, wringing her hand. When she notices Laurel, she grimaces and leans on the sink as if nothing was wrong.

 

"Do you...not have a bottle opener?" Laurel says. Michaela's lips straighten into a deeper grimace. "I'll take that as a yes. I got it."

 

Michaela holds out the bottle as if she doubts that Laurel can do anymore than she did. "What? Do you just carry a bottle opener on you at all times?"

 

Laurel doesn't know if she's wearing the right pants so she's glad to find the dollar in her right pocket or else she'd have to use one of her keys for this. She holds the bottle against her side with her elbow while she folds the dollar vertically, rolls it up, and folds it in half vertically again. She pops open the bottle with ease and hands it back to Michaela who's sporting a look of weary disbelief.

 

"Alright, Miss Moneybags, who ARE you?"

 

"My dad opens his beers the same way," Laurel smiles sheepishly. Then frowns. "Wait. How rich do you think I am??"

 

"Pretty rich," Michaela deadpans before someone knocks at her door. She leaves the kitchen to go answer it, drinking from the bottle without so much as a 'thank you'.

 

"That--that isn't....exactly un-true," Laurel mutters to the air.

 

She knows Asher is at the door from Michaela's voice ringing out a warning a couple of minutes after the door opens: "There will be NO barfing on my couch or I will murder you myself, Asher."

 

Laurel doesn't doubt it. She walks out of the kitchen to see Wes touting more drinks and heading towards the kitchen as Asher helps himself to the couch carefully under Michaela's glare. Wes smiles at Laurel in greeting and sets the drinks near the sink before walking back out and plopping down on the couch, taking out his work and putting it on the table like he's been here before. Michaela and Wes have never looked couply though. Michaela pats his shoulder before saying what looks like "thank you" before heading to the kitchen again.

 

There she was, overthinking Michaela's relationships again. Maybe Laurel sits down next to Wes on the couch with her homework to test Michaela. If Michaela and the Puppy were dating, she'd get annoyed with Laurel.

 

She doesn't seem to be though as she plods back into the living room with a bowl of tortilla chips and dip and places them in the middle of the table, drawing up her papers before curling up in the corner of the couch with her knees up, papers on her thighs, cider on the table. It's strange to not see her scowling or suspicious, just quietly focused.

 

She's cute from this angle. Not that she isn’t cute from other angles? Hm. She also smells nice, like vanilla, and it countered the harshness of Wes's cologne. Laurel sighs and turns to her work finally, banishing those thoughts and gripping her pencil tighter, the silence of their study more welcoming once she was immersed.

 

Asher breaks the silence maybe 30 minutes in with a "WHOOP" because Connor texted to their group chat that he was pulling up to the building and brought Oliver along. Michaela snorts and stands to get the door but Asher's already got it covered in his enthusiasm.

 

"HEYYY, what's good my GAY-BRO??? And, uh, his," Asher looks at Oliver,"Gay...bro?"

 

Michaela pushes Asher out of the way then and shakes hands with Oliver actually smiling at him but raising her eyebrows at Connor as he walks in.

 

"Wow, it's...really normal." He sounds almost disappointed.

 

Michaela tilts her head. "What were you expecting?"

 

"A padded room," he winces, reaching down for a handful of chips.

 

Michaela snatches up the bowl of chips, yelling that he's going to starve for the rest of the night. Laurel sees her eyes light up with the threat but the corner of Michaela's lips quirk up as well.

 

\--

 

The boys have started talking excitedly now, though she's not sure she can catch about what. Wes is smiling at their banter but still doing his work on the couch and Michaela's only glanced at him maybe once or twice to actually ask him about their classwork so Laurel can say that their relationship is probably more sibling-esque than girlfriend-boyfriend. She's seen the way Michaela flirts with guys anyway.

 

Laurel's stayed mostly focused on her work till she's completely done. It looks like Michaela's either been done or gave up because she's texting someone.

 

"Caleb?" Laurel guesses, hoping she sounds nonchalant and not accusatory like the other day.

 

Michaela scrutinizes her before letting out a, "Yeah."

 

Laurel nods, awkwardly not knowing how to talk about Caleb outside of the case. How do you pretend to be interested in talking about a guy you don't like?

 

"He asked if I was free tonight and I said no," Michaela looks up at Laurel. "That I was 'studying'."

 

Laurel shrugs and nods still not knowing what to say. "You aren't....NOT doing that?" Her brow furrows in her anxiousness.

 

Michaela nudges her with her feet.

 

"Stop overthinking everything. You’ve been doing it all night."

 

Laurel tries to smooth out her face, eyebrows arched. "I don't know what you're talking about."

 

Michaela looks at her knowingly. "Your eyebrows do that--that thing--see! That! They come down lower over your eyes right before you launch some sort of plan or scheme or whatever."

 

Laurel rolls her eyes and takes a swig out of her bottle, the alcohol affecting her enough to entice her into entertaining Michaela. "Alright. I'll humor you. I do a….a... 'thing' with my eyebrows. Tell me more about myself."

Michaela purses her lips in a somewhat evil smile, the one that says she’s up for a challenge. “Well,” she says, mockingly putting a finger on her chin before counting on her hands for each sentence, “You don’t seem to like most of your family. You’re fluent in your native tongue and speak Spanglish when you get drunk. You seem to be using Frank, which is fine with me since he seems fishy, but you also still might love him a little bit? And you’re more worried about my relationships than Annalise, or my mother which is...weird when you pair it with the fact that you’ve been watching me all night.” She tilts her head at Laurel and waits for her rebuttal.

 

Laurel raises an eyebrow and smiles uneasily, not sure whether she should affirm these things or if her gestures will affirm them anyway. She sets down the bottle and hears Wes snicker off to her side, “She’s totally right.” Laurel elbows him and turns back to Michaela who’s grinning like the cat that ate the canary.

 

“Okay, listen.” She draws herself up to make herself seem in charge but she’s tipsy so the dizziness just makes her reach out for the nearest thing to steady herself which is Michaela’s shin. Surprisingly enough Michaela’s grin just widens and she watches her, waiting. “I’m not worrying about you, it just so happens that...I don’t want any of us to go to jail so we should avoid getting into weird entanglements.”

 

“What she means is, she worries about you a lot,” Wes whispers from the side.

 

Laurel punches him in his ribs this time and he leaps off the couch to the kitchen, where Asher and the rest moved since they weren’t studying.

 

Michaela’s still smirking at Laurel when Laurel turns back around so Laurel just shakes her head and reaches for her drink.

 

“Hey Michaela!” Connor yells from the door-frame of the kitchen. “This party’s pretty boring. Got any movies?” He looks back at the empty space in front of the couch and center table. “Actually, do you have a tv, period?”

 

Michaela huffs, pushing herself to her feet. “For the last. Time. This wasn’t a ‘party’.”

 

They end up setting up the 13-inch LCD TV that Michaela hefts out of her room on another table in front of the couch.  Laurel wonders why Michaela's still entertaining them when she could just tell them all to leave and finally have her peace. It’s almost 11pm and the guys are setting up pillows on the floor, looking cozy. Wes hesitantly rejoins them on the couch but on the further end, stretching out his long legs to rest his heels on Michaela’s table. Laurel eyes his grey socks and tenses, waiting for an outburst but Michaela’s focused on the tv. She only mutters that she’s Febreeze-ing every surface of her furniture once they leave. Laurel snorts in response.

 

The movie is “Inception” and Laurel’s _positive_ Michaela put it on to put everyone to sleep because 40 minutes in most of the boys are knocked out save for Oliver and Wes (whose heads nod forward and jerk awake for maybe five minutes before they’re out too).

 

When the scene of Mal jumping off the building comes on, Laurel scoffs. “She could be still alive.”

 

“I’m pretty sure she’s dead, Laurel,” Michaela says.

 

“What if he’s still dreaming at this point? What if he’s literally never woken up?”

 

“When he spins the top and it falls, that’s how he knows he’s not dreaming. He also put the spinning top in Mal’s subconscious to get her to leave the dream world but it never stopped spinning which is why she kept thinking that the real world wasn’t real.”

 

Laurel parses this over. She’s quiet until the scene where Saito shoots himself.

 

“Cobb could’ve shot Mal.” Laurel feels Michaela’s eyes slowly turn on her. She meets her eyes. Michaela’s staring at her like she’s crazy.

 

"Remind me to never trust _you_ with my life in a dream world."

 

“He could’ve! And then he wouldn’t have had to mess with her uh... _como se dice_ …....uh--,” Laurel snaps her fingers as if that'll make her remember the word quicker.

 

“Subconscious?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“He couldn’t even shoot the after-image of her in the movie. If he’d actually shot her though, he’d have to live with the uh...PTS...D.”

 

They’re both silent as Michaela’s sentence sinks in. On the screen Leonardo Dicaprio squints into the distance. Michaela turns off the tv with a shaky sigh, the room only filled up with the guys’s snoring.

 

Michaela massages her temple and sinks further into the couch. “I wonder if we’ll ever get past this.”

 

Laurel shrugs. She'd rather not be a downer and say her mind which is, _we'll never quite get_ past _it as long as we work for Keating._

 

Her eyes fall on the rest of the Keating Five on the floor. “You aren’t gonna kick ‘em out?”

 

Michaela wrinkles her nose and shakes her head. “I’d feel some type of way kickin’ em out at one in the morning when they aren’t really causing any trouble.” She smiles faintly down at them then at Laurel, “I don’t normally like letting a bunch people into my apartment because I don’t want them messing things up, but this was...nice.”

 

Laurel feels butterflies in her chest at the smile (this was maybe the third genuine one directed at her tonight) but she clears her throat and nods. “Yeah! Yeah. Connor was less of an ass than I expected.”

 

“Oliver makes him act like an actual person,” Michaela chuckles.

 

Laurel wants to add that Michaela being in sweatpants somehow made Michaela act like an actual person but she didn’t want to harsh a good mood. She corrected herself: Michaela was just relaxed since she wasn’t under the stress of having to impress anyone. It looked like she could breathe.

 

Michaela leans forward, pokes her thumb between Laurel’s eyebrows and pushes upwards until Laurel’s brow raises and she goes a little bit cross-eyed trying to focus on Michaela and her arm.

 

“You’re analyzing things again,” Michaela says softly.

 

Laurel huffs. “ _Michaela_ , I’m just. Thinking. It’s what people do. It’s very normal.” She brushes her hand away, nearly missing the unreadable expression that flashed on Michaela’s face when she spoke her name.

 

“‘Mime must minking, meeme--me-meme’,” Michaela mimics in that really annoying voice that does not sound like Laurel at all.

 

“That does NOT sound like me!” Laurel hisses as Michaela slides off the couch snickering, retreating to her bedroom.

 

Laurel lies down, thinking she’s gone for the night, but gets hit in the face with something soft and she sits up sputtering. It’s a pillow and blanket. She watches as Michaela stands off to the side of the guys with a larger blanket and use her whole body to toss it over them. She even goes so far as to tug the blanket so that it covers Asher.

 

She appears over the armrest where Laurel’s propped her head against and smiles a less intense version of that saccharine smile, “If you tell anyone about tonight, I will find you, Castillo.”

 

Laurel only smiles back. Michaela’s said both her first and last name correctly tonight. “I won’t.”

 

“Good.” She steps back with her hands in her sweatpants pockets. “Then goodnight,” she whispers and disappears behind her bedroom door.

  


Looking at the window and the radio across from her, Laurel thinks that maybe Connor should trick Michaela into letting them sleepover more often.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> -v-  
> sorry if this was terrible! i'm still learning their voices and i'm hoping for an episode featuring Michaela's family soon and for her and Laurel just to interact/talk more. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
